


The truth is I'm too tired to play pretend

by thelastofthecrazypeople



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Horizon (Mass Effect), Hurt No Comfort, Internal Monologue, M/M, Paragon Commander Shepard, Post-Horizon (Mass Effect), working through Mass Effect 2 feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-21 00:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11932809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastofthecrazypeople/pseuds/thelastofthecrazypeople
Summary: I never thought coming back to life would be like this. Then again, I never really thought about what being reborn might be like before now, you know.On the other hand, I also didn’t picture dying like this. Floating out in space, the wreck of my ship – my home – in front of me, terrified and alone.





	The truth is I'm too tired to play pretend

I never thought coming back to life would be like this. Then again, I never really thought about what being reborn might be like before now, you know.

On the other hand, I also didn’t picture dying like this. Floating out in space, the wreck of my ship – my home – in front of me, terrified and alone.

And then nothing for a long while.

Until I woke up – I _woke up_ from death – terrified and disoriented, with strangers looming over me, just to be put back to sleep and woken up again with sirens blaring in my ears.

This part though, was the easiest of them all. Snapping back into action, arming myself and moving through a foreign base while taking out things out to harm me, was more a reflex than a conscious action, something I’d done so many times before that I clicked into it seamlessly.

It didn’t leave me time to think about, well anything, either. That would come later, after fighting through the shooting mechs and meeting Jacob and Miranda. After my first meeting with the Illusive Man.

The foolish thing was that for a moment - a brief second - when I stepped foot into the new Normandy and greeted Joker and hadn’t really had time to process anything; a small part of me thought, hoped that it could be like before.

I could gather my old crew together, as much of it as was still alive.

I could finally see Kaidan again. That thought - finding Kaidan, making sure he was alright with my own eyes - stole my breath for a tic and almost blinded me with want, before I could remind myself that more important things were at stake.

Duty comes first - the golden rule of any good soldier. The word of the Illusive Man that Kaidan - any of my crew really - was alive and well would have to be enough until I had taken care of some of the more imminently pressing matters.

Of course, hoping things would return to the way they were was a foolish thought to have. As much as I declined working _for_ Cerberus, I was still to some extent a part of them. I still used their resources and their money and their people to further the mission. I still owed them my life.

And a big part of me knew that that was something Kaidan could never forgive. Not after what we’d seen them do. Not after what we’d fought against.

 

Settling into the Normandy was strange and uncomfortable.

I can’t count how many times I walked into Miranda’s office deep in thought and ready to sit down at my desk, before seeing her face and remembering that this wasn’t my office anymore. She took it gracefully, let me fumble through an excuse or a hastily thought of question before allowing me to excuse myself.

How often I almost reflexively walked to the space where Kaidan’s workstation used to be just to find myself faced with the kitchen and a puzzled cook.

It was disorienting in a way how the ship was familiar and just different enough to make me feel vertigo whenever I searched for the stairs up to the CIC, just to find myself facing the observation deck and remembering that the stairs are no longer part of this ship – were never part of _this_ ship.

It’s the same with the crew in a way, people manning stations I expect somebody else to stand behind leaving me distracted and disoriented.

Of course I put effort into getting to know my new crew, I’m still the CO of this ship.

Their lives are still mine to protect.

It is still my duty to support them in any way I can.

And me knowing my team, knowing what makes them tick and where their strengths and weaknesses lie, what their hopes and dreams are is still the most integral part of securing the success of our mission.

Yet it still feels lonely sometimes - with things so achingly familiar and yet so foreign.

Then there’s Garrus. Where I spent two years healing, my body knitting itself back together, he had time to grieve and to try to cut out a new living for himself. He - like this ship - is the same and yet changed.

Of course he is; I wouldn’t blame him if I could and I hardly can. But his presence is a strange reminder of everything we were and everything we could have been. It feels like we are both walking wounded and neither really knows how to help the other but damn are we trying.

 

Things look up for a bit, we recruit talented new people and I can feel the crew - myself included - growing closer. I feel like I’m making progress.

I don’t stumble into Miranda’s office quite as often or startle the cook by searching for a workstation that has never been there. I use my cabin more, even if I still don’t like how it isolates me from the crew just by being too far out of the way of everyone else.

I can feel myself getting back into the rhythm of an active ship.

I can feel myself adjust to new routines.

 

And then Horizon happens.

The whole mission is a clusterfuck of immeasurable dimension and yet at the end of it, after living through it all, the biggest hit lands.

After every way I tried and failed to find him, Kaidan Alenko walks right up to me.

That hug was the best thing in a while, even sweaty and bloodstained and exhausted as I was after that battle.

Maybe especially after that battle.

But I let my guard down too soon. I should have known Kaidan wouldn’t take my alliance - however tentative - with Cerberus lightly. And I did know. The logical part of me knew all along that he wouldn’t be okay with it. Even if we saved him and as many colonists as we could - not enough by any margin.

Even if he still loved me.

But my heart - foolish as it was - yearned for him with a wordless hunger and it hoped without hope.

I wasn’t prepared for his words. I’m ashamed to admit that I took them badly, replied angrier than I wanted to instead of explaining calmly, trying to make him understand why I did what I did. Why I had to do what I had done. Why he could still trust me and believe that I was the same Shepard he knew before, not some cruel copy.

In the shuttle back to the Normandy, his words still reverberated through my brain. I was sure it would be the last thing I ever heard from Kaidan.

I spent hours that night tossing and turning, mourning something that had barely begun to be; a promise given before a suicidal mission, a light to cling to in dark times.

Our time together haunted me worse than before I’d seen him. Not just that night before Ilos; we had been friends long before starting to become something else. The silent conversations, knowing looks and easy silences left just as big a hole as the physicality of our night together. Maybe even a bigger hole.

Morning arrives too soon and not soon enough and I revel the fact that I have to get up and face the day as much as I curse it.

I’m well into my daily routine when Kelly Chambers notifies me of a received message. I get until the word “sorry” before I have to log out of the message and excuse myself from the CIC. I practically flee into the elevator and for once I’m actually grateful for the fact that my quarters are well away from everyone else.

The message is like a punch in the gut - even just those first few words: _“Shepard, I'm sorry”_

The fact that my crew doesn’t see me like this - ragged and barely keeping it together, blinking away tears - is a godsend right now.

They don’t deserve a commanding officer like that. They deserve a CO that is level-headed and calm not crumbling at the edges.

I make sure to seal my quarters after entering them – I don’t want any of them accidentally walking in on me like this.

I hesitate before walking to my desk and the private terminal set up on it, try to take steadying breaths, to steel myself for whatever else the message might entail.

Part of me wants to delete it unread and unseen, run from everything it could mean for me and him.

Part of me wants to desperately cling to every single thing still connecting me to the man I love.

In the end, I can’t quite bring myself to stay away, so I sit down and open the message to read what else Kaidan has to say:

_“Shepard, I'm sorry for what I said back on Horizon. I spent two years pulling myself back together after you went down with the Normandy. It took me a long time to get over my guilt for surviving and move on. I'd finally let my friends talk me into going out for drinks with a doctor on the Citadel. Nothing serious, but trying to let myself have a life again, you know?_  
  
_Then I saw you, and everything pulled hard to port. You were standing in front of me, but you were with Cerberus. I guess I really don't know who either of us is anymore. Do you even remember that night before Ilos? That night meant everything to me... maybe it meant as much to you. But a lot has changed in the last two years and I can't just put that aside._  
  
_But please be careful. I've watched too many people close to me die -- on Eden Prime, on Virmire, on Horizon, on the Normandy. I couldn't bear it if I lost you again. If you're still the man I remember I know you'll find a way to stop these Collector attacks. But Cerberus is too dangerous to be trusted. Watch yourself._  
  
_When things settle down a little... maybe... I don't know. Just take care._  
  
_\--Kaidan“_

 

All the air in my lungs rushes out of me with that last line. It’s too vague and too full of maybes and just hopeful enough to hurt like a dagger buried between my ribs. My next inhale shudders through my lips and I can feel the tears I’ve been holding back dislodging without my permission.

For a while I stare at the screen blindly, still trying to comprehend what this means for me. What it means for us.

But answers aren’t forthcoming – the screen gives me nothing more than what I already know and so I turn away from it – my gaze gliding half-heartedly over the model ships over my desk, the armour locker next to my bed, before coming to a halt on the fish tank.

The deep blue of the water and the movements of the fish inside have always calmed me down, helped me ground myself and I hope they will do the same for me this time around as well.

I don’t know how long it has been since I fled the CIC, how long I’ve been staring at the fish – just that I’m not crying anymore and the dutiful part of my mind has been screaming at me to get up and go back to work for a while.

Usually I’m unable to turn that part of, ticking away inside of me, aware of every minute, every second and how I could make more of it.

Usually it’s one of my favourite parts of myself, constantly driving me to be better, to do more.

Usually I’m not drowning in my own feelings with a suicidal mission looming ahead.

Usually I’m not playing with the idea that dying for real might not be such a bad thing this time.

Now it’s just an empty howl in the back of my mind – overshadowed with by a lethargic detachment in the rest of my body.

It’s not until EDI chirps in her corner and informs me – with more tact and professionalism I’d expect from an AI – that my presence is required in the CIC, that I finally gather myself enough to get up.

“I’ll be down shortly” I reassure her, before turning to my bathroom to splash some water in my face. It’s bad enough that I just abandoned them in the middle of the day – my crew doesn’t have to know how emotional this whole thing has made me.

I take care to rinse my face thoroughly, hiding any evidence of ever having cried – carefully putting myself back together as I work with methodical, precise movements. Once the person staring back at me from the mirror looks suitably presentable - looks mostly like myself – I straighten out my uniform one last time before heading back to the bridge.

I still feel like there’s a hole in my stomach, threatening to swallow me whole – but right now is not the time to indulge in it.

My crew needs me.

And I will be there for them.


End file.
